Better Than You
by The Offbeat Alchemist
Summary: The Barrows twins enjoy a little sibling unity--the most disturbing of sibling unities since the invention of sibling unities. Even more disturbing is how extremely easy it's become for me to get inside their heads; should I be disturbed?


**Better Than You**

Bobby Barrows hummed a cheerful tune as he strolled down the tunnel carved deep beneath the mansion he called home, absently scratching the object he was carrying along the stone of the walls. "Move it," he gruffly ordered the dogs who guarded the corridor.

The large animals ignored or attacked anyone else who came by, but they knew better than to mess with the young master, and scattered with low growls and plaintive whines. Bobby continued on, a skip in his step. With his glossy black shoes and their silver buckles, his trim blue shorts and jacket and his shining round face, he made a downright beatific, postcard-perfect image—except for the large pair of gardening shears clutched in his small hands.

He paused to gaze, satisfied, at the dried blood on the tips before running up and yanking on a thick velvet curtain that hung along one of the walls. "Hey, Dan; you there?"

A ridiculous question, of course. Dan was always there, and would never be anywhere else. A fact the six-year-old loved to rub in his sibling's fat face whenever possible.

Bobby gleefully tugged the heavy curtain back, ignoring the low gurgle his brother made, presumably in protest. Dan Barrows could gurgle, groan, wheeze, whine and make a plethora of all sorts of other ungodly noises, but talking was a skill that was beyond him. You could tell by his dark eyes that a lot went on inside his mind, though—if you could stand looking that closely at his face, that is.

Bobby didn't mind—he was only person besides their mother who wasn't afraid of Dan—though he often wondered if calling the two of them 'twins' wasn't stretching it a bit. With his sparkling blue eyes, cherubic face and halo of golden hair, Bobby often heard terms like 'sweet' and 'angelic' tossed his way when he was out in public.

One instance in particular stood out in his mind; he had been four and was taking a walk through a park with his mother, Mary Barrows. A lady he had never seen before had stopped them and began talking to his mother about all sorts of things he didn't understand or care about. When she finally noticed him clutching his mother's hand she had stopped short and practically squealed with delight. "What a beautiful child!" she had exclaimed.

She probably would have babbled on and on, but he had gotten fed up with the sound of her voice and shoved her into traffic. Lady Mary had watched, amused, and then taken him home for tea and cookies. Later he had gone down to describe the incident to Dan—how all the cars had swerved into each other as they tried not to run the lady down (she had eventually run, hysterical, into the path of a bus and had been sent rolling and bouncing down the road like a rubber ball)—which was when he realized something for the first time; Dan was jealous.

Perched on his underground throne and draped in silks and velvet like some kind of king, Lady Mary had everything her son could ever need or want brought down and laid at his feet. Not that Dan had feet worth speaking of.

So what if their mother worshipped him as a god and constantly lured unsuspecting victims—adults and children alike—down to the bowels of the mansion where they would made into sacrifices; Bobby knew the truth. He had seen how Dan looked at him—and anyone else that walked on two legs—and knew he envied that kind of mobility. On occasion, Bobby would race back and forth in front of him, free as a breeze, and laugh at the jealous fury that flashed in his brother's eyes.

But it wasn't just his ability to go and do whatever he pleased that he was jealous of; Dan also wanted to go out and kill for himself, of this Bobby was certain. He knew because Dan's eyes always grew wide and bright whenever he described his latest victim, and his wheezes got particularly loud, too.

After all, the thrill of the kill was lost when someone did it for you. But like it or not, Lady Mary did all the killing for him, before laying the sacrifice's flesh out for him to devour. Big deal, Bobby always thought; they did the same thing for the dogs.

Bobby sat cross-legged at the base of his brother's 'throne' and thrust the bloody shears dangerously close to his bulbous face. "Look," he ordered gleefully.

Dan looked—he hadn't much choice—as a low grumble passed through his bloated lips. Pleased that he had his attention, Bobby pulled the shears away and held them close to his own eyes as he pulled the sharp blades open slowly. "I went to play in the garden this morning," he began slowly, wanting to let the tension of the story build. "That old gardener was out, too, trimming the hedges. I told him to let me try, but he said no."

He closed the blades again with a sharp click. "He said _no_. To _me._"

The blades clicked again. "So I gave him a haircut. And a finger-cut. And a toe-cut. And..."

Bobby grinned widely as the blades clicked some more. "...A gut-cut. They're probably still hanging all over the hedges--his guts, I mean. Too bad you can't go see."

His grin grew wider; that flash of jealous rage was in Dan's eyes. He was touching on one of his brother's many sore spots and they both knew it, and Bobby reveled in it.

Dan never got to see. Not even when their mother prepared his food; she always did her ritual sacrifices further up the corridor. He never got to see—and he never got to _do_. Still grinning, Bobby decided it was time to make his brother just a little more miserable.

"There are more people coming. But you're not getting all of them this time; _I'm_ going to get them first."

He clicked the shears pointedly. "Mother says it's all right if I play, so long as I leave you a few. She thinks you're too fat anyway."

That wasn't true, but it made his brother tremble with fury. Bobby watched, unimpressed, as the fleshy gray body bobbed up and down, like a giant turd in a toilet. He sure _smelled_ like one.

"Oh—I almost forgot."

Bobby set the shears down and pulled something from his pocket. "Unlike you, I'm way too cute to scare people by myself, so I'm going to wear this," he said as he tugged the mask he had found over his head.

The bouncing and angry gurgles stopped as Bobby blinked through the holes in the rubber mask. Dan slowly drew in his breath and let it out in a series of rapid huffs. Bobby listened to this new sound, puzzled, until realization made his cheeks burn; his brother was _laughing_ at him.

"Hey, clowns are scary," he said defensively. "But...maybe I'll see what else is laying around, just in case."

He yanked the grinning mask off, making his usually neat hair stick out in all directions. Dan was still laughing, which made Bobby scowl and say, "We can't all be born with a face that makes people wet their pants."

Bobby had sneaked into one of the sacrifices once. Occasionally Lady Mary found victims who came willingly, and he watched from behind a rock as the group was led into the main chamber. They all fell at the base of the curtained platform, giving praise to the unseen 'god' Lady Mary had coerced them into believing in. When asked if they would like to finally see the one they had been so loyal to, they were only too quick to agree.

Their cries of adulation soon turned to screams of horror. The women had either fainted or ran, while one of the men had thrown himself to the ground and started scratching at his eyes with a stone. Bobby was pretty sure Dan would have liked to start chewing on them then and there, but their mother had insisted on having them all dragged to the ritual chamber and sacrificed properly.

Bobby definitely didn't share his brother's love for human flesh—though their mother was always reminding him of that one time. Sure, he had bit the hand of the doctor that had helped birth them, but just a little. Dan had been the one to devour it—the pig.

"Robert, are you down here?"

Bobby cringed at the sound of his full name. No one called him that except Lady Mary—to everyone else he was just Bobby. And his twin—whom their mother affectionately referred to as her darling Daniel—was Danny. No one else called him Dan, and that was the way Bobby liked it.

"We were just talking, mother," he called as he got up. The sound of Lady Mary's heels clacking on the ground could be heard long before she came into view, looking particularly severe in the shadows cast by the candlelight.

"Well," he added with an impish grin, "_I_ was talking."

Mary nodded absently before turning her gaze, full of affection, to her other son. Bobby gritted his teeth as his own fiery jealousy started up—she never looked at _him_ like that—but he forced it down. He was better off than Dan would ever be, cooped up here like a prisoner in a dungeon, and he knew it. Better yet...Dan knew it, too.

"See you later, brother," he called as he happily skipped out of the chamber, clicking the shears as he went.


End file.
